Almost precisely 5 years in the past, Enrico La Rocca was hailed by MPs as a hero, a whistleblower whose tenacity had helped expose profound failures on the coronary heart of the federal government’s huge advantages company, leading to tens of hundreds of susceptible unpaid carers being unfairly fined and prosecuted.
With out La Rocca – who was not named on the time – severe issues with carer’s allowance overpayments might by no means have come to gentle, the Commons work and pensions choose committee concluded: with out him the Division for Work and Pensions (DWP) would by no means have been persuaded of the “pressing have to act”.
But lower than a 12 months later the DWP sacked him, the Guardian can reveal – simply months after its everlasting secretary, Peter Schofield, had assured MPs that La Rocca – an skilled civil servant within the carer’s allowance unit – could be “completely” protected for talking out.
The DWP’s extraordinary remedy of the carer’s allowance whistleblower emerges as ministers face rising scrutiny over their persevering with failure to repair those self same administrative failings – and rising outrage that 5 years after the DWP promised to repair carers allowance overpayments little or no has modified.
1000’s of carers are nonetheless falling foul of the system, incurring money owed, unwell well being, and in some instances a prison report. MPs and charities this week queued as much as name for reform of the carer’s allowance, as carers themselves instructed harrowing tales of injustices and hardship inflicted on their households by the DWP.
La Rocca was dismissed in Could 2020 simply because the Covid pandemic was hitting and the DWP was scrambling to mobilise workers to course of a sudden avalanche of common credit score claims. On the similar time, the carer’s allowance issues rapidly fell off the DWP’s agenda, the place they’ve arguably remained.
For years he had raised his considerations about carer’s allowance along with his line managers, and thru briefings for his commerce union, the PCS. His insights weren’t welcomed, union sources say. By 2018, pissed off that carers had been being unfairly prosecuted and fined, he wrote to the then welfare minister, Sarah Newton.
A union official with data of the case stated: “Enrico had tried to boost these points by means of inner DWP channels, however he hit a brick wall.” La Rocca then wrote along with his considerations to the Nationwide Audit Workplace (NAO), and Frank Discipline, then the chair of the work and pensions choose committee.
Discipline wrote to the NAO in November 2018 asking it to analyze. It was “really surprising” he wrote, that carers had been bearing the brunt of “eye-wateringly massive overpayments” as excessive as £48,000 because of “systemic failings or gross incompetence” on the a part of the DWP.
La Rocca had warned staffing shortages meant the DWP was failing to correctly handle information matching alerts it obtained figuring out potential breaches of carer’s allowance earnings limits. In consequence, hundreds of carers who labored part-time on prime of receiving carer’s allowance inadvertently earned greater than they had been allowed to, usually by only a few kilos.
The next NAO inquiry report in April 2019 discovered that between 2016 and 2018 the DWP was checking simply 12% of earnings breaches. It discovered two-thirds of carers hit with earnings-related overpayments of greater than £2,500 throughout this time may have prevented operating up these enormous money owed had the unit been staffed adequately.
Discipline, a veteran poverty campaigner who died this week, was palpably shocked by the overpayments, later accusing the DWP of “surprising ineptitude”. However he misplaced his seat within the December 2019 basic election, the committee was suspended in the course of the pandemic, and political – and arguably DWP curiosity – within the carer’s allowance waned.
La Rocca, in the meantime, was in hassle after his managers found he had written privately to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). It’s understood he had requested the CPS to make sure the NAO report was made accessible to the decide in carer’s allowance fraud prosecution instances, to allow the total context of overpayments to be understood.
He had beforehand raised considerations internally that carers had been being unjustly prosecuted for fraud in instances the place avoidable DWP administrative failures had meant the overpayments weren’t noticed early. A key criterion for the DWP referring carers to the CPS is the overpayment owed is greater than £5,000.
His union on the time argued unsuccessfully that La Rocca’s actions in writing to the CPS had been “a part of ongoing whistleblowing motion to hunt to deal with a transparent and bonafide concern, and that he ought to have been supplied with whistleblower safety and never dismissed”. La Rocca was suspended in February 2020 and dismissed for gross misconduct in Could, dropping his attraction in June.
The story didn’t finish there. After being proven the door, La Rocca wrote to the chair of the work and pensions choose committee, Stephen Timms, to elucidate what had occurred. Timms made representations to ministers to complain. La Rocca’s case was additionally taken up by the whistleblowing charity Shield. In April 2021 he was reinstated and is known to be working in one other part.
La Rocca declined to touch upon his sacking when approached by the Guardian. A DWP spokesperson stated it didn’t touch upon staffing issues. They stated the DWP was “dedicated to equity within the welfare system, with safeguards in place for managing repayments, whereas defending the general public purse”.
In the meantime, the overpayments scandal continues. The DWP launched an automated data-matching system in 2018. By 2023 – the newest figures accessible – it was checking simply 46% of potential earnings breach alerts every month. Final 12 months, there have been 34,000 overpayments instances – one in 5 of carer’s allowance claimants who labored part-time on prime of their caring duties – a complete that has barely shifted in 5 years.
One supply near the PCS stated La Rocca ought to by no means have been sacked: “Because the MPs’ reward suggests, he was clearly doing a public service. If he hadn’t been, then why did he get his job again?”
